EMC Member Blogs

The best analogy to explain the Big Data approach to capturing informa­tion is comparing the first generation of GPS navigation systems to the current technologies available. The first generation captured and used all the data known at a certain moment to chart your course to your destina­tion. It used maps, your location and your intended location to calculate your shortest route and time using the map information and associated speed limits.

The province of Ontario just announced that minimum wage will be raised to $15 per hour by January 1, 2019, up from the current minimum wage of $11.40. Predictably, the announcement caused instant and intense debate, along equally predictable lines. Since the same arguments get replayed every time without changing anyone’s established opinion, I think it’s a good time to look at things differently, and in particular, how they could (or should) affect manufacturing.

First of all, there is an unappreciated underlying positive effect that even opponents may like. Radically raising the minimum wage for working people increases the gap between working people and non-working people. I know that there will soon be a follow on cry from many folks in the non-working community, but when it makes little difference to people whether they work or not, many choose not to work. Some would argue that decreasing benefits or support to the non-working group is the…

Businesses evolve over time because they have to - because times change. Economic situations change, as does the marketplace and the business environment, not to mention political and societal changes underway as well. These changes may cause us to alter our visions and re-evaluate our values frequently, but what they don’t alter is our DNA. Our DNA is what our companies were born with, and unless they are sold or die, it’s what they take with them into the future. Intentionally or unintentionally, our DNA affects and shows up in every part of our organization's life. So, what 3 or 4 characteristics most define your company's DNA?

The start of a new year is not just a great time to look ahead with some clarity to the next year and somewhat speculatively to the distant future, it is also a good time to look back at the past year and also further back to our companies’ origins.

Businesses evolve over time because they have to - because times change. Economic situations change, as does the marketplace and the business environment. The rate of change has been accelerated by technology, and now also by the significant…

We all have folks like Jim in our plants - people with a tremendous wealth of experience and potential, ready to be tapped into. All they need is the chance to learn a few new skills, and after that, who knows how far that momentum will go. All it takes is one person to get it started, one person like Jim. Who is the 'Jim' in your plant?

I met Jim last year when I visited the plant he works at, near Ottawa. He’s a down to earth guy, about my age, (getting up there!), and has a knack for figuring things out and getting things done. He’s been doing it for 38 years.

At first glance, he’s the kind of guy you wish you had in your plant, or perhaps think you already have, but as you read on, you’ll see his story is much more than that. Jim is now intentional and committed to the continuous improvement process, but he wasn’t always…

Quantifying "productive" or "value adding activity" in a visual and meaningful way is often the first step in achieving significant productivity improvement objectives. The following study shows how one FreePoint customer successfully increased the efficiency of their critical processes by 69% over a one-year time span, reducing production costs and increasing capacity without incurring any significant capital expense.

The following study demonstrates how one FreePoint customer successfully increased the efficiency of their critical processes by 69% over a one-year time span, reducing production costs and increasing capacity without incurring any significant capital expense.

The customer is a modern machine shop located in the border region in Mexico. The shop has 4 Electrical Discharge Machines (EDM) that are critical to the company’s production. Tooling shops are very similar to other "job shops" - each…

Effective communication is a key to success in business, as it is in life. Today's information technology explosion offers many different ways to communicate, but sometimes the technology gets in the way. And sometimes, time away from the office offers the best chance to learn something new, or refresh things we need to remember.

Alpha. Bravo. Charlie. Delta. Echo.

I thought it would be fun to teach my granddaughter the phonetic marine alphabet. We spent a lot of time on the boat this summer, and she was fascinated with the ‘old fashioned’ ways still used to communicate. She was also interested in the maps I still use, the compass, and interpreting all the nautical markers on land and sea. I was equally fascinated that someone her age would be so interested in all those things – her generation has grown up with…

Many of us were introduced to the manufacturing industry by our fathers, or even our grandfathers. With Fathers' Day still fresh in mind, I thought it worthwhile to share a few of the stories I know. Our society owes a lot to the manufacturing industry, and our manufacturing industry owes a lot to them.

My father’s birthday usually falls within days of father’s day, so I often reflect on the influence he’s had on my business life around that time of year, every year. Through my conversations with other leaders in the manufacturing world, I have discovered that I am clearly not alone – many of us owe our careers, and some even our businesses, to our father’s influence and role model mentoring.

My cofounder in FreePoint, Randy Hess, is a 3rd generation co-owner of a 65 year old manufacturing…

Two of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers today are attracting and retaining young people. This didn't just happen all of a sudden - it started a generation or two ago, and it might take a generation to fix it. Wages are not the issue - it's part perception, part education, and part the failure of employers to recognize that young people are looking for different things from their jobs today than previous generations were.

Manufacturing in North America has fallen behind, and now many are paying for it. Yes we’ve invested in innovation, and yes we’ve invested in training, and yes we pay better than average wages. But still, we are struggling to fill our vacant jobs, and we struggle even more to attract and retain younger workers. We’ve let our on-floor factory jobs become stagnant, unexciting, unengaging and unattractive.

This hasn’t just happened all of a sudden. It started a generation or two ago when we…

No offense to anyone else in the organization, but the people that add the most value to the product daily are the people actually doing the work on the factory floor. We need to start thinking of them as "value adders" and not as a "cost" or "expense". They add value; they don’t take away value. The more "value adders" an organization has, the better.

I’m a slow learner, I confess.

Last month, along with my team, I presented the findings of a study that was done in conjunction with Fanshawe College. It showed a definite correlation between measuring and sharing routine value adding activities and productivity improvement. The key is finding meaningful and appropriate ways to share a quantified representation of that value adding activity in real-time. It’s a concept I’ve been working on for 4 years, and an event I was planning for a month.…

There’s a great lesson that we can learn from an American legend that is often retold. It can teach us something for our society and for our companies, but its first something that we have to learn for ourselves personally, and often something that we have to relearn everyday.

There’s a native American legend that explains the struggle that goes on inside of each of us and compares it to a fierce and constant battle between two wolves. The legend explains that one wolf is evil and filled with things like anger, jealousy, greed, self-pity and arrogance. The other wolf is good and filled with the opposite things, like peace, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, compassion and faith. The story is told to a young boy by an old brave or perhaps his…